Northern Illinois University hosts the Illinois High School Association State Football Championships Thanksgiving weekend.
This is the fourth time that Northern Illinois University has hosted the championship. They’ve alternated this duty with the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign since 2013.
Brad Hoey is on the IHSA Destination DeKalb Hosting Committee. He said the arrangement lines up with team geography.
“Most of the high school football programs, most of the schools, most of the fans reside in in the northern part of the state," he said, "where the population centers are."
Hoey said the championship will be the culmination of eight different classes of high school competition.
“We’re looking forward to having 16 teams here on the weekend of Thanksgiving," he said, "and that’s going to bring in approximately 25 to 28 thousand, maybe even 30 thousand fans.”
The championships are also expected to bring in up to a million dollars to the local economy over the course of the weekend. The games take place Friday the 29th and Saturday the 30th in NIU’s Huskie Stadium.